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(Vocal Fireworks; Myths and Legends; Comedy)
In their third collaboration, Richard Strauss and writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal created one of opera’s wittiest masterpieces. Set in 18th-century Vienna, it is based on the premise that a clown show and a serious mythological opera have to be performed at the same time on the same stage to accommodate a rich man’s party schedule. The Met’s production by Elijah Moshinsky, designed by Tony Award winner Michael Yeargan, captures both backstage drama and onstage magic.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Powerful Women; Myths and Legends; Romances)
Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman’s production showcases the artistry of Renée Fleming in the title role of this beguiling and unusual work, based on a Renaissance epic set in the time of the Crusades. A powerful sorceress manipulating the destinies of men for personal and political gain, Armida in the end is defeated by love. Tenor Lawrence Brownlee plays the soldier who resists her magical appeal. Rossini’s buoyant score features high-wire vocalism, a dreamy ballet, and what may be the only all-tenor trio in opera.
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(Romances)
The world’s most popular opera is an inexhaustible treasure trove of powerful emotion, a musical revelation of the details that make up the human experience in modern times. Presented at the Met in Franco Zeffirelli’s ingenious production—which still draws gasps and applause more than 25 years after its premiere—La Bohème remains an essential operatic experience.
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(Anti-heroes; Epic New Productions; Page to Stage)
Mussorgsky’s vast epic of the Russian nation’s sufferings and ambitions is presented in a new production by director Stephen Wadsworth. Valery Gergiev conducts a spectacular cast headed by René Pape in the monumental title role, a pinnacle of the bass repertory. Aleksandrs Antonenko, Vladimir Ognovenko, and Ekaterina Semenchuk also star.
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(Powerful Women; Romances)
Richard Strauss’s opera about whether poetry or music is the supreme art is a wise, sophisticated, and often ravishing piece whose intimacy and elegance veils the work’s emotional depth and insight. Renée Fleming, who dazzled audiences singing this opera’s final scene on opening night of the 2008-09 season, returns for the complete diva showcase as the countess who must choose between two lovers—and the worlds of art they represent.
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(Powerful Women; Anti-heroes; Page to Stage; Romances)
The Met’s thrilling new production of this classic by Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre, one of the highlights of the 2009–10 season, reveals all the vitality and dangerous allure of Bizet’s masterpiece. Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna reprise their sensational performances of the leading roles, caught in a fatal spiral of love and violence. Nicole Cabell, Kate Aldrich, Hei-Kyung Hong, Brandon Jovanovich, Mariusz Kwiecien, and Paulo Szot also star.
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Le Comte Ory
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(Vocal Fireworks, Comedy)
Rossini’s vocally dazzling comedy soars with bel canto sensation Juan Diego Flórez in the title role of this Met premiere production. He vies with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, in the trouser role of Isolier, for the love of the lonely Countess Adèle, sung by soprano Diana Damrau. Director Bartlett Sher, who created the Met’s popular productions of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Les Contes d’Hoffmann, says, “I love the deep sense of love that’s in the music. You always feel more capable of understanding love when you get to the end of a Rossini opera.”
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(Vocal Fireworks; Anti-heroes; Myths and Legends; Page to Stage; Romances; Mind Games)
Offenbach’s romantic psychological fantasy returns in director Bartlett Sher’s colorful production, a Kafkaesque vision that evokes both the charm and the darker undertones of this operatic masterpiece. Giuseppe Filianoti is the poet of the title whose failures in love help him discover his artistic vocation. Kate Lindsey reprises her acclaimed performance as the Muse and Ildar Abdrazakov stars as the sinister Four Villains.
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(Comedy)
Mozart and Da Ponte’s smart, sophisticated, and somewhat disturbing look at the follies of young love comes alive with an appropriately youthful and sexy cast. Famed conductor William Christie, whose rediscoveries of 17th- and 18th-century gems has thrilled international audiences, makes his Met debut leading one of Mozart’s most elegant, beautiful, and profound scores.
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(Epic New Productions; Page to Stage; Power Play; Romances)
Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of London’s National Theatre, makes his Met debut with this new production of Verdi’s most ambitious opera. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, returning after his sensational debut with last season’s Carmen, conducts a stellar cast led by Roberto Alagna in the title role. Ferruccio Furlanetto is King Philip, Marina Poplavskaya sings Elisabeth, and Simon Keenlyside plays Posa. “Not one of these characters is prepared to accept his or her own tragic destiny,” Hytner says of this epic tragedy in which romantic desire shapes the course of nations.
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Don Pasquale
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(Vocal Fireworks; Comedy)
Donizetti's comedy pits a pair of young lovers and their ally against a vain old man in mid-life crisis. Otto Schenk's smart production captures the wit of this refined gem, featuring the dazzling Anna Netrebko in the role that made her a star with New York audiences. Matthew Polenzani is her lover, John Del Carlo plays the title character who needs to learn a few lessons, and Mariusz Kwiecien is the wise doctor who makes all the magic possible.
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La Fanciulla del West
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(Powerful Women; Anti-heroes; Romances)
A single game of poker decides the fate of three people during the California Gold Rush in this magnificent operatic western, which premiered at the Met in 1910. The opera’s centennial run features Deborah Voigt as the Girl of the Golden West, with Marcello Giordani and Lucio Gallo as the bandit and the sheriff who battle for her heart—and their own souls. Nicola Luisotti conducts the colorful score, which many call Puccini’s masterpiece.
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(Myths and Legends)
Christoph Willibald Gluck actively sought to push the boundaries of what opera could be, and this elegant and powerful work from 1779 continues to surprise and amaze after two centuries. His musically involving and dramatically compelling interpretation of a Euripides drama about the aftereffects of the Trojan War stars Susan Graham and Plácido Domingo as the brother and sister who must discover each other in order to restore sanity to a world gone mad.
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Lucia di Lammermoor
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(Vocal Fireworks; Romances)
This classic of the operatic stage has captivated audiences from its premiere to the present day with an unforgettable portrait of a woman torn apart by conflicting loyalties and emotions. This tale of romance and madness features one of Donizetti’s most ravishingly beautiful scores and is presented in Mary Zimmerman’s hit production, which opened the Met’s 2007–08 season.
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The Magic Flute
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(Vocal Fireworks; Myths and Legends; Comedy)
Mozart’s timeless fairy tale is given a dazzling and inventive twist in Julie Taymor’s production, which incorporates enchanting puppetry and whimsical choreography. Telling the story of two distinctly different men embarking on a mystical quest, the score combines unequalled musical beauty with psychological insight, dizzying vocal pyrotechnics, and some of the most beloved and popular tunes in the history of opera.
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(Power Play)
John Adams’s contemporary masterpiece has its Met premiere, conducted by the composer. Director Peter Sellars makes his company debut with this groundbreaking 1987 work that explores the human truths beyond the headlines surrounding President Nixon’s historic encounter with Mao and Communist China in 1972. James Maddalena recreates his acclaimed portrayal of the title character.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Myths and Legends; Romances)
One of history’s greatest myths is explored in Mark Morris’s production of Gluck’s groundbreaking opera. The tale of the gifted musician who defies death itself to be with his wife has inspired artists of all kinds over the centuries. At the Met, this gorgeous, elegant score is brought to life through dance, visual spectacle, and even aerial acrobatics as well as by graceful and alluring vocalism.
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(Myths and Legends; Romances)
Eminent conductor Simon Rattle makes his Met debut with this ethereal masterpiece, Debussy’s only opera. Stéphane Degout and Magdalena Kožená star in the title roles, and Gerald Finley plays Mélisande’s husband, Golaud, in this haunting tale of love and jealousy, which returns to the Met for the first time in six years.
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(Anti-heroes; Page to Stage; Mind Games)
Pushkin’s story of an otherworldly old lady who holds the secret to winning at cards—and the crazed young man obsessed with wringing it out of her—is one of the most remarkable pieces in all of Russian literature. An innocent young woman and her shady would-be husband round out the unforgettable cast of leading characters in this lyric drama that inspired Tchaikovsky to write some of his most ravishing, dreamlike, and hauntingly memorable music.
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(Epic New Productions; Myths and Legends; Power Play)
Wagner’s epic Ring of the Nibelung, which begins with Das Rheingold, “is more than a series of operas: it’s a cosmos,” according to visionary theater artist Robert Lepage, who directs this new production, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine. Bryn Terfel leads the cast as Wotan, the conflicted chief of the gods who vies with dwarves, giants, and ultimately himself for mastery of the earth.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Anti-heroes)
Verdi’s searing drama of the misshapen outcast who reflects on—and perpetuates—the evil of the hypocritical world he inhabits has enthralled audiences for more than a century and a half. With a perfect union of gripping character insight and some of the world’s most glorious melody, Rigoletto remains vital theater whether experienced for the first time or after many times.
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(Page to Stage, Romances)
The world’s greatest love story gets the ultra-sensual treatment Gounod’s romantic French adaptation. This season the Met production features an extraordinary cast headed by the captivating Angela Gheorghiu as Shakespeare’s doomed young girl and tenor sensation Piotr Beczala as the handsome young man who defies the law and risks everything for her love. Plácido Domingo conducts.
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(Epic Spectacle; Power Play)
A compelling portrait of a man who is both a leader and an outsider, this tragedy is also a complex vision of individuals amid the political turmoil of early-Renaissance Italy. Less familiar to audiences than some of Verdi’s hit operas, Boccanegra remains a prime example of his genius at its most insightful and humane. Dmitri Hvorostovsky portrays the tormented title character, with Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas, and Ferruccio Furlanetto as the characters caught up in their leader’s destiny.
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(Powerful Women; Romances)
Director Luc Bondy’s dramatic new production of Puccini’s operatic thriller returns, with Sondra Radvanovsky and Violeta Urmana sharing the timeless title role of the diva forced to confront brutal reality. Marcelo Álvarez and Salvatore Licitra alternate as her lover, the artist and revolutionary Cavaradossi, and Falk Struckmann and James Morris appear as the sadistic police chief Scarpia, who is determined to win Tosca for himself.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Page to Stage; Romances)
Director Willy Decker’s striking new production, which received rave reviews when it was first seen at the Salzburg Festival, arrives at the Met. A brilliant vision of the classic drama of a courtesan who is purer than the hypocritical world she inhabits, this Traviata stars Marina Poplavskaya in the title role, opposite Matthew Polenzani as her lover, Alfredo. Andrzej Dobber sings Germont and Gianandrea Noseda conducts.
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(Vocal Fireworks; Romances)
Verdi’s vision of life out of balance has goaded, irked, and thrilled audiences since it first appeared on the world’s stages 150 years ago, quickly becoming what one critic called “the opera that stands for all opera.” With a wealth of melody familiar far beyond the opera house, including the dynamic Anvil Chorus and gripping solos for all four of the leading characters, Il Trovatore’s surefire impact is conveyed in David McVicar’s acclaimed 2009 production.
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(Powerful Women; Myths and Legends; Power Play)
The Met’s new Ring continues with its second installment, in Robert Lepage’s visionary production, conducted by Music Director James Levine. One of the most intensely moving dramas in all of opera, Die Walküre focuses on the relationships between gods and men. Bryn Terfel stars as Wotan, lord of the gods, and Deborah Voigt makes her role debut as his warrior daughter Brünnhilde. Eva-Maria Westbroek and Jonas Kaufmann are the doomed siblings—and lovers—Siegmund and Sieglinde.
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(Anti-heroes; Page to Stage; Mind Games)
Met Music Director James Levine conducts Berg’s 20th-century masterpiece about a simple man’s inexorable journey toward madness and murder. One of the groundbreaking scores in the history of opera, Wozzeck stars baritone Matthias Goerne in the haunting title role, opposite Waltraud Meier as the woman he loves—and kills.
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